Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The No Research Zone

I don't watch Fox News much, and I've never made it all the way through The O'Reilly Factor. You might think it's because I disagree with him politically and I don't want my precious world view shattered. Actually, it has more to do with how valuable my time is and I don't want to waste it listening to a pinhead.

I thought I'd give it a shot this evening, see how the top show on Fox News would cover the stories of the day, particularly on Iran.

On comes the show, O'Reilly points at the camera and tells us we are in The No Spin Zone. Yes, just the unvarnished truth from Bill O'Reilly.

O'Reilly starts his talking points. We've had trouble from two members of The Axis Of Evil this week, North Korea and Iran. Okay, I think, fair enough. We haven't had trouble from Saddam's Iraq, he says, because it no longer exists.

How many car bombings in a week does it take for this guy to pay attention? Iraq is also trouble, and the world still expects us to fix it, whether Saddam is still around or not.

O'Reilly then shows video of a young woman bleeding on a Tehran street without giving the story any context. "We don't what happened to her." he says.

Yeah, we do, Bill. She died. Her name is Neda Agha-Soltan. She was 27 and she was shot by Basij militia. She was a block away from the protest and killers shot her in what is being described as a drive-by shooting. Hers has become the face of Iranian martyrdom. The regime is not allowing any funeral demonstrations in her honor. I found this out partly because I had already watched MSNBC earlier in the day, and also doing some research online, including a link from Fox News.

I understand that people have a need to have their world views confirmed, but how about a little actual skill at disseminating information? Is that too much to ask? Apparently, for Bill O'Reilly, it is too much to ask.